According to the official bit.ly blog, the link-shortening service is nearing 5 billion clicks per month. Helping matters is that Twitter replaced TinyURL with bit.ly as the default link shortener. Why does this matter to Web professionals...

Bit.ly, one of the most popular link-shortening services, has undergone an overhaul, including some new functions and improved features that will prove very valuable to Web professionals. It's been dubbed the "fugu edition...

The problem with using short URL services such as TinyURL is that you can't really tell how effective they are ( how many people click on them ) much less where they have been seen on the wider Web. In a time when analytics is...